butterfly_blueprint.zip |
blueprint_revision.zip |
This project was a circuitry project; my class built butterflies after reading the book, In the Time of the Butterflies, and included both series and parallel circuits. Our butterflies were required to have working LEDs and a motor that would flap the wings; we used series circuits for the motors and parallel circuits for the LEDs. I did not have any problems with the wiring; that was the easiest part, actually! Naturally, we had systems to make the wings move as connected to the motor. You can see my revised blueprint above, just below my final product. I did my blueprint in an automated 3-D modeling software, or CAD (which is not the acronym for what I just wrote), called SolidWorks, which is something unique that I am proud of. I have my CAD blueprints available for download above.
I received the most help from my father. After I had fully constructed my butterfly, I discovered that my motor, while it spun quite fast, actually had very little torque, and was completely incapable of flapping my wings. I tried everything to reduce the friction, but the wings themselves were too heavy to flap. The motor could move them down, but not up. My dad stepped in and helped me devise a system to connect a larger motor to the side of my butterfly and make it work. The concept didn't work the first time, but we kept at it, and eventually we got it right. Before my dad stepped in, I talked to Mr. Schwartz about my problems with my motor. He suggested swapping out my motor with a larger one. However, I wasn't willing to take my butterfly apart a week before the deadline when I had spent two weeks on it already, so he then suggested attaching the motor to the side of my butterfly via a belt/pulley system, or something similar. I took this feedback and incorporated the part about attaching the motor on the side. I wasn't quite sure how I would put a belt/pulley system on my already rigid shaft, though. This was where my dad suggested connecting the drive system and the motor with a shaft, similar to a locomotive's wheels. I tried it, with the help of my father, and it worked.
From this project, I learned to never try to work with balsa wood when making something as detailed as my butterfly. The mechanical system is so small and intricate that 1/32 of an inch can make a huge difference in how well it functions; balsa wood is not the best material to use when dealing with such precision. Actually, I had initially been told that I would be able to use a 3-D printer, so I designed a much more complicated system involving gears. However, after I created my initial blueprint, I was informed that the 3-D printer was broken, so I had to get rid of the concept of gears, and my current system was born.
The wiring system went a lot better than I had originally expected. I had a complicated electrical system as well, with between two and seven LEDs on each of my four wings. In addition, I had heard from Mr. Schwartz at the beginning of the project that his students last year had had a multitude of problems with their wiring systems breaking or just not working. However, I never had any problems with my electrical systems, and I completed the wiring and soldering in around two days, as compared to the approximately two weeks taken by my mechanical system. As stated before, my main problem was the 3-D printer's broken status. I overcame this by making my mechanical system about 2/3 as complicated and around 1/4 as intricate as before. My largest frustration with the project, though, was that it was meant to be a circuitry project, and although this isn't really anyone's fault - the 3-D printer wasn't working - the circuits took me 1/7 of the time the mechanics did.
Even though my system was extremely complicated, I was ahead of a lot of the class for most of the project, so I must have been doing something well concerning work ethic. I think that the main thing was doing my blueprint in CAD, which completed the blueprint and proved my mechanical simultaneously. This mitigated my need for a cardstock proof-of-concept, which the rest of my class was required to create. For work ethic, I should spend less time on trying to make something work when there's just no way that I can, and save time by asking more knowledgeable adults for help. If I hadn't done this eventually, there's no way I would have completed my butterfly, and having done it sooner would have taken some of the stress out of my subsequent weekend.
How would I change this project? Well, the school needs a new 3-D printer, but aside from that, the time constraints were vicious. I also had robotics during the project, so every waking hour that wasn't already full was spent trying to get my butterfly's wings to flap. It would have been nice to have started the project earlier; it would have taken some of the stress off.
I received the most help from my father. After I had fully constructed my butterfly, I discovered that my motor, while it spun quite fast, actually had very little torque, and was completely incapable of flapping my wings. I tried everything to reduce the friction, but the wings themselves were too heavy to flap. The motor could move them down, but not up. My dad stepped in and helped me devise a system to connect a larger motor to the side of my butterfly and make it work. The concept didn't work the first time, but we kept at it, and eventually we got it right. Before my dad stepped in, I talked to Mr. Schwartz about my problems with my motor. He suggested swapping out my motor with a larger one. However, I wasn't willing to take my butterfly apart a week before the deadline when I had spent two weeks on it already, so he then suggested attaching the motor to the side of my butterfly via a belt/pulley system, or something similar. I took this feedback and incorporated the part about attaching the motor on the side. I wasn't quite sure how I would put a belt/pulley system on my already rigid shaft, though. This was where my dad suggested connecting the drive system and the motor with a shaft, similar to a locomotive's wheels. I tried it, with the help of my father, and it worked.
From this project, I learned to never try to work with balsa wood when making something as detailed as my butterfly. The mechanical system is so small and intricate that 1/32 of an inch can make a huge difference in how well it functions; balsa wood is not the best material to use when dealing with such precision. Actually, I had initially been told that I would be able to use a 3-D printer, so I designed a much more complicated system involving gears. However, after I created my initial blueprint, I was informed that the 3-D printer was broken, so I had to get rid of the concept of gears, and my current system was born.
The wiring system went a lot better than I had originally expected. I had a complicated electrical system as well, with between two and seven LEDs on each of my four wings. In addition, I had heard from Mr. Schwartz at the beginning of the project that his students last year had had a multitude of problems with their wiring systems breaking or just not working. However, I never had any problems with my electrical systems, and I completed the wiring and soldering in around two days, as compared to the approximately two weeks taken by my mechanical system. As stated before, my main problem was the 3-D printer's broken status. I overcame this by making my mechanical system about 2/3 as complicated and around 1/4 as intricate as before. My largest frustration with the project, though, was that it was meant to be a circuitry project, and although this isn't really anyone's fault - the 3-D printer wasn't working - the circuits took me 1/7 of the time the mechanics did.
Even though my system was extremely complicated, I was ahead of a lot of the class for most of the project, so I must have been doing something well concerning work ethic. I think that the main thing was doing my blueprint in CAD, which completed the blueprint and proved my mechanical simultaneously. This mitigated my need for a cardstock proof-of-concept, which the rest of my class was required to create. For work ethic, I should spend less time on trying to make something work when there's just no way that I can, and save time by asking more knowledgeable adults for help. If I hadn't done this eventually, there's no way I would have completed my butterfly, and having done it sooner would have taken some of the stress out of my subsequent weekend.
How would I change this project? Well, the school needs a new 3-D printer, but aside from that, the time constraints were vicious. I also had robotics during the project, so every waking hour that wasn't already full was spent trying to get my butterfly's wings to flap. It would have been nice to have started the project earlier; it would have taken some of the stress off.